Specific information stored in logs?

[Robert Anthony]

Hey all,

I've been working with JIRA for quite some time now, but I'm always looking to expand my knowledge of how to use it. Now I'd like to know how to do some basic log reading. Specific information:

I handled a recent handoff to a client who had multiple sysadmins that really should have just been project admins

After a few days chaos ensued (of course) and after trying to do specialized notifications via groups someone pulled (accidently) admin powers for almost everyone. I was contacted and asked to take a look, and found my admin powers were gone too. Then after I said it was most likely connected to the groups change magically the problem fixed itself. Obviously, I'm assuming someone was fooling around with "Jira-administrators" but I can't prove it. Or can I? Management would like to know how this happened and I would love the ability to further support my argument that 5+ sysadmins that aren't properly trained is a bad thing, but I need to know what to look for in the logs. I know what date/time approx the change was made, but I don't know what to look for, what log to even open, the entire process etc. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

Actions like this aren't logged unless you've already got the audit log enabled.

You might be able to work something out if you'd doing access logging in a web front end - apache logs can tell you "user id X went to group management at day/time", but it can't tell you what they did there.

[Robert Anthony]

Thanks for the answer Nic!

Any idea what I'm looking for if the Audit log is in fact enabled?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

The main things it could be are changes to global permissions (those say which groups can do what), users removed from groups, or deletion of groups.

[Robert Anthony]

Thanks!

[Joe Pitt]

I can't help you with the logs, but I strongly suggest you convince them to treat JIRA like a production system and only allow updates through a Change Request/Configuration Management system. You can setup a JIRA project to track them. I'd start with a select list of actions of Create Project, Add Field, Update Select List, Create/Modify Screen, and Other. Then, even if there is more than one sysadmin performing actions they will be documented. Then give the first one to violate the rule a couple days off without pay to make them understand it is important.